Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Dan and Paul take an in-depth look at the worlds portrayed Young Adult dystopian fiction.
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Paul
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Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Paul » 13 Apr 2015, 06:18

Humanity has been taken over by glowing brain slugs who turn out to be not so bad, once you get to know them (aside from the whole controlling your body like a puppet thing). This week, Dan and Paul look at the world of Stephenie Meyer's followup to Twilight, The Host.
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demiteddybear
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby demiteddybear » 13 Apr 2015, 07:03

Ok, a bit of an irrelevant question; Dan has brought it up a few times that the versions of the movies he watched were in Italian. I tried looking it up, but couldn't find anything about it. So Dan, do you just prefer watching movies in Italian, are you studying Italian, live in Italy, downloaded versions that are for some reason only in Italian, disorder that means you hear all movies in foreign languages, what up?

Back on topic; throughout the whole synopsis of the story the only thing I could think was, wow this is a lot like Stargate. Damn Goa'uld, taking our bodies; but they'll never take our hunky boys!
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Master Gunner » 13 Apr 2015, 07:34

Dan is currently living in Italy, I think it was mentioned near the beginning of the first episode (as well as elsewhere).
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Daniel » 13 Apr 2015, 07:50

Thanks Master Gunner, yes that's correct, I'm living and working in northern Italy at the moment, so we record the podcast 8500 km apart! Part of how I justify the time watching these movies is that it is helping me to learn the language. I watch the movies dubbed into Italian, with subtitles in Italian. This makes it easier, except when it doesn't: in Divergent, Dauntless is translated as "Intrepidi" in the dub, and "Audace" in the subtitles I had. Both of which are way better than "Dauntless" in my opinion!

The books, on the other hand, I'm reading in english - otherwise it would have to be a bimonthly podcast, not biweekly.

demiteddybear, I love the idea that I came down with a rare disorder where all movies are in perfect italian. Then I'd be like, damn, better learn italian! Can you explain the stargate reference? This is SG-1 right?

Also, thanks for listening and commenting! I'd like to hear any bits you liked about the episode, and suggestions for things to change up to make future eps better.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby demiteddybear » 13 Apr 2015, 09:34

Thanks a lot for the answer, can't believe I missed that in the first episode, I must have blanked out for a second. It makes even more sense that you guys are doing this so far apart since I wondered why there were gaps between the two of you talking and replying. I also feel a bit stupid since it's even in your location that you're in Italy.

Well if you do suddenly come down with that disorder (that in the event it actually becomes a thing, as it's discoverer I shall call "Whycantiunderstandthisitis") then the fact you're already learning Italian shall put you ahead of the game.

Well it made me think a lot of Stargate (the movie aswell, but mainly SG-1 since they address it a lot more) is because of the main bad guys. Aliens that take over the human body. They talk about whether the human inside is killed; many times they manage to talk to the humans inside; and sometimes the human voice manages to influence the alien, but then the aliens try to explain this as an echo. You said in the book that the first thing that happens is they take over the girl and use her to try and find the rebels and even that happens a few times in Stargate since the aliens have access to all the human's memories. I wonder which one came out first, though I'm sure both got their ideas from something that did it before.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Eric the Orange » 13 Apr 2015, 10:25

I always felt this book/movie missed an opportunity to do something interesting. What if instead of another attractive girl Wanderer was put into an older man. Or even better a non human. Would that guy still be in love with, say, a parrot?

This of course brings us to sexuality and "being Gay is not a choice". I mean I know at least some of the audience would have liked it if wanderer was put into the body of another hunky boy for gay makeouts, but on a character perspective you cant just change your sexuality. I mean it is all well and good to say you would still love your significant other if they changed their gender but you can't MAKE yourself be attracted to someone.

I mean I know why they don't. The target audience wants to read about hunky boys not strange man/animal relationships. Well most of them probably.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby winterpanda » 13 Apr 2015, 10:28

As someone who has never read or saw The Host, it sounds cheesy. Then again so is Twilight and other dystopian YA romance novels/movies.

I really liked the Miserables reference and the jokes you guys made. Keep up the great podcasting.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Kinbalk » 13 Apr 2015, 15:14

First as a heads up it's available in on the US Netflix [url](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70243448)[/url] so if anyone wanted to watch along to this one. Also, it's NOT the S.Korean horror movie when I first started the podcast and was very confused.

It honestly wasn't that bad of a movie. I mean, I've come to learn all YA dystopias are kinda crazy dumb in plot development. But seeing the end credits roll and see Steph Meyer's name I was utterly shocked considering how much Twilight was just a repulsive look at teenage girl angst and this was just a solid character drama set in a crazy co-co world.

Maybe you guys can add in a plothole segment to the podcast to point out areas where the film is clearly doing some hand-waving. I like that you pointed on the sunglasses/contacts conundrum that was really the failing of the movie.
Additionally, there's this concept of the healer that has these magic 'wands' Why were there SO many in that doctors office and if so many exist why not just hand them out to everyone? Also, if the seeker was struggling to control her body why was she willing to swap out at the start? Maybe to find an easier host body but why not just grab another one to start? Also at the end with the twist, isn't that whole stop just exposing the other survivors in case the actual seekers show up and "OY! what's all this then?" the situation.

There's a handful more but I'll move on and extend my congrats to a rather enjoyable podcast.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby ritchards » 13 Apr 2015, 19:31

If you want to see a good take on taking down the movie, check out Your Movie Sucks, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby Daniel » 13 Apr 2015, 23:46

Wow, that guy went to an enormous amount of trouble to only make the point that a movie sucks! Especially a not very popular movie. It makes me think we should try even harder to steer away from snark and sarcasm in our podcast. But he does make some good points about Andrew Niccol. It's frustrating because he's one of the only people consistently getting idea-driven science fiction films made, from the Truman Show and Gattaca to the completely forgotten S1m0ne, and yet he's also kinda dumb. He really comes up short when it comes to working through his premises, and ends up with easy, sentimental answers to all the intriguing questions. So I thought this story was absolutely on his level, and he certainly made it look as gorgeous and striking as Gattaca.

Thanks for the netflix note and the thoughts Kinbalk! I didn't think it was that bad either - I enjoyed it a lot more than Divergent or The Giver.

Eric the Orange I like these thoughts about the missed opportunities for exploration. I think I say a couple of times that this is a completely unique premise! but of course it isn't. There's Stargate, as demiteddybear points out, and Jadzia Dax, and then many literary examples. The biggest fault in this story is that it's stuck in goopy conventional teenage ideas about attraction and love, when there's a chance to really dig in and stir things up. Could a teenage boy really genuinely feel love for an alien caterpillar? Even the transition of the consciousness from one cute teenage girl's body to another must have been a jolt for the guy, but we don't see that.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby demiteddybear » 14 Apr 2015, 01:20

I really enjoyed Simone, I thought it was quite interesting from the creation taking on a life of its own point of view. I haven't seen Her, but as far as I know it focuses more on the different love story.

I suppose being YA is both an advantage and disadvantage for dystopia stories. The bad side is losing focus Of the story and setting and only giving us the story of trying g to miss a succession of hunk boys/ cute girls. On the other band, being a young adult is confusing enough, so it gives a great setting to explore these worlds, whereas an adult would have more of an established view or setting.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby markc7 » 14 Apr 2015, 09:16

Ugh, house centipedes. I vacuumed up one of the filthy little f%ckers while listening to the podcast. Yeck.
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Re: Fight the Future 02 - The Host

Postby JustAName » 28 Apr 2015, 11:08

Yeah, I was also thinking they seriously sounded like more beneficent Goa'uld (especially with the glowy-eye thing). Maybe if the Tok'ra had the resources of the Goa'uld?

Also, for more examples of that trope there is, of course, the Yeerks of the Animorphs series.
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